שנאת חינם

Unfortunately, we are learning from the goyim to look at everything externally. We decide if we should love other Yidden based on their opinions, who they vote for, how up to par they are in avodas Hashem, etc.
If we start looking at everything from a Torah point of view, we will only see other Yidden as pure neshamos whom we must love as true brothers.
At the same time, Hashem doesn’t need us to defend Him for not sending Moshiach. If we try to do everything we can to add in ahavas yisroel, we can demand from Hashem that enough is enough. (מדרש תהלים פי”ז. חפץ חיים על הסידור סי’ קסח. ועוד )

What is שנאת חנם? The Yad Yosef on the Ein Yaakov Yamo (9,2) explains what it says that the second Beis Hamikdash’ destruction came about because of it. It is a שנאה הכבושה בלב, it is hatred bottled up in the heart. The Torah forbids hatred in the heart and wants us to admonish each other when one was wronged. Sometimes hatred like jealousy, which is not an excusable hatred, is not revealed but hidden by acting towards the other like one loves them. We cannot protect ourselves from the other as this hatred is not known. This hatred will last forever and will not be undone. As this hatred lasts forever so does the galus. So we should love each other just for the fact that we are all children of one father, Hashem and then bring the geula speedily in our time, Amen.

The Baal Habayis kept his hatred inside his heart and acted on it and the chachomim did not say anything that is שנאת חנם. Kamtzeh did not know why he is being ostracized. The Meharsha says that the son was invited.

@cofee addict:
The sinas chinam of 2nd temple was NOT between Rabbis and tzadoqin.
We are SUPPOSED to hate the Reshaim – and even put them to death if that is according to the law of G-D.
rather, the sinas chinam of 2nd temple was BETWEEN Torah observant jews and each other.
kamtza and bar kamtza and the bal habayis were all frum jews

The goal is avodas Hashem, serving Hashem. How one does that is up to the person, so there is no reason to hate each other.

B”H I live in a place where as one Ruv put it, “Our communities Mesorah is Shalom and Achdus.” Seeing Modern Orthodox and Chasidish Shuls doing joint celebrations is heart warming. When the Chasidish Rebbes, Agudah Ruvs, and the Modern Rabbi that uses a microphone and has a minimum Mechitza and open parking lot all work together with Kavod and Shalom it sends a powerful message to the Kehilla. But what really gets me high is seeing school videos where Modern Orthodox, Yeshivish and Chasidish children all go to school together. When I read in other places people argue how children need to go to separate schools based on shirt color, Shul they Daven at, shetiel length, etc. it breaks my heart since I don’t understand why and its surely keeping Moshiach away.

Kuvult: What about shalom and achdus with the Open Orthodox?

Always,
Not knowing it was unusual, that’s how we (boys and girls) grew up. The schools were very diverse so they didn’t teach hashkafa only Torah and Middle. Not surprisingly, the Chasidim turned out Chasidish, the Yeshivish turned out Yeshivish and the Modern turned out Modern. Hashkafa is best taught at home by the parents. That way as a parent you know they’re getting the exact message you want to send without getting frustrated the school is teaching things (to your right or left) that you don’t agree with.

AAQ- we all understand how painful that personal experience you had with your child (I think you said daughter?) was for you and how you have not only been unable to move forward, but have decided to apply it to all the school system. On the other hand I am sorry for your daughter who was not allowed to grow because of your bias against the “movement” she was becoming a “carbon copy of”, to the point that you pulled them out and are afraid of them learning too much from the wrong people.
To be a “responsible” parent (as you like to call the ones who step out of their box to get educated), it sometimes takes swallowing your biases and letting your kids grow.

Syag,
I shared some of my experiences to provide testimony for discussions of most important part of Jewish life, education. Saying that my opinions are wrong because they are based on my experiences does not add much to the discussion.

Some of the value in that information is that some information comes out of the mouths of principals when there is a disagreement. So, you can assess whether this applies to your institutions without going thru the same painful steps. I absolutely do not think that all schools have these problems, or that the same schools do not have positive sides.

“Saying that my opinions are wrong because they are based on my experiences does not add much to the discussion.”
I didn’t say that your opinions are wrong because they are based on your experiences. I said you are wrong in generalizing it, as you often do, to the school system. And I said I believe it is wrong to yank your kid because they are getting too frum for your comfort. Which flows nicely into my response to your next post – you are tasting this wonderful way to be committed to Noone and nothing but your own comfortable cherry picked customs and halachos. Call it cultists and group think to make it work for you but we call it a tzibur.

@Always_Ask_Quesions – “I find schools or teachers who “simply” teach Torah and derech eretz the best”

Exactly! You find that education the best, therefore YOU should send your kids to such a school.

How do you define “derech eretz”? If it means that when they grow up the children should go to college, get a degree, and that will make them a fine yungerman – many people will not want to send their kids to your school, because college etc. goes against their entire hashkafa.

You might not want to send your kids to a school that teaches that Jews must grow beards (although this is an obligation according to many, many poskim from all sides of the chasidish/litvish spectrum), or a school that focuses on staying separate from the אומות.

Obviously, you can’t find a school that has every single hashkafa exactly the same as yours, which is why you must take an active role in educating your children, but you want a school that fits your derech for the most part.

“Are you advocating for kids being sent to public or open-modern schools with no supervision?”
Please indicate where I imply this. Your quote above it was your excuse for removing your kids, not my assessment of the situation.

“Ok, I guess I can wait until he grows into his 20s, and then, I can talk with him as an adult and train him into better thinking.”

If your kid has one teacher in 5th grade with good middos but intolerance and that is how she has chosen 20 years later to fashion herself after than you have some serious parenting issues here. I believe that is what they call a strawman argument.

Menachem, good questions. I think a school should have separate classes for those who are preparing for college and those who will go into learning/teaching. Making them sit in a common “math” class is torturing both. This can be partially augmented with online assignments. I would have no problem if school teachers halochos of beards, mentioning what the approaches are. I realize it would be tedious to be inclusive without getting ridiculous, but it is possible. I heard for example a Sephardi chacham routinely say Ashkenazim do this, we do that… Beit Hillel used to do this and even shulchan aruch is written this way … Really if you focus on classical Jewish texts, you can teach them without being divisive most of the time.

@Always_Ask_Questions:
Halevai we should be on such a level that everything is a matter of black and white opinion in seforim. But the problem is:

1) Unfortunately we are human. Most people will be nuanced in their teaching. If a teacher is of the opinion that l’poel one should have a beard, he will lean towards those poskim, thus affending the parents who don’t hold of that.
If the teacher does not have a beard, you can’t exactly trust him to give an objective shiur about the importance of beards.

2) Children will be confused. They must be guided by one general derech. It is obviously okay for them to see some diversity, but you can’t confuse them with completely different hashkofos and have their parents decide what is right.

Imagine a teacher is giving a class about tziyonus: “Children, Reb Menachem Kasher teaches that every Jew is obligated to be עולה to Eretz Yisroel and support the government there. The Satmar Rebbe holds that the state is מעשה שטן. Now, go ask your parents which opinion you should hold.”

This resembles more a public school education where everything is pure facts, and anything that is related to values and morals is banned from the classroom. We believe that schools should first and foremost educate our children with the proper hashkafos of how to be an ehrliche Yid, and for that you need a school that follows your outlook.

” I think a school should have separate classes…”
How is this any different from separate schools? If anything this only causes more machlokes and less achdus between children!
(“Oh, your parents sent you to that class? They must be treife college fans”)

Always,
I guess I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t shocked it was someone from out of town. I know it goes on like the video of 3 Modern Orthodox Rabbis, 1 Modern Yeshivish Rabbi and a Chasidish Rabbi making a joint celebration at the Shul that also has a huge Yom Hatzmoat event.

Kuvult, sorry I misunderstood. I had a similar case where I called a chabad house where I wanted to stay as I had a conference on Friday. He was curious of my background and asked: are you a, b, or c? I answered: Jewish. He abruptly stopped questions, laughed and said, of course you are welcome to come. It was a wonderful place.

What is this dichotomy between modern and yeshivish? You are denying first group serious learning, or making it unaffordable and inappropriate by pushing them into expensive private schools, and you are denying second group a possibility of leading normal life earning relatively easy living. Any big school had 2 or more levels for some subjects, there is no reason some levels are college track and others are not, some are kollel track, and others are not. Kids should not be confused that some are going to be rabbis and some lawyers, and some both.

They say עני’ רוגב על חנוור’ are the hardest meseches, ערובין, נדה and יבמות. It will bring people together as they need each other to understand it and each mesechta has to do with unity. The highest נדה, the closest between husband and wife, מחבבות על בעלה. Separation brings them closer together. The second is יבמות, unifying the family and the last is ערובין which brings Jews together by allowing them to carry things to each other. Learning these meseches helps to bring Meshiach. Learning together eliminates שנאת חנם, futile hatred.

When I see a Bar Mitzvah video at a very large school and a boy with no hat or jacket and a sports logo on his yarmulke is next to a boy with a hat and jacket, I think Wonderful! When the pictures have boys with no hat or jacket, a boy with a jacket but no hat and a boy in a white shirt black pants and hat and jacket I think Wonderful! When I see a boy with a knit yarmulkes (with the metal clip on each side) sharing a Siddur with a boy who has a buzz cut and long curly Peyos it warms my heart. This is how Yiddishkeit is supposed to be. This is what brings Moshiach.

The Meharal says that when we put water next to fire, water puts out the fire but when we put the water in a pot, the fire heats the water. So sometimes we have to be careful when mixing. More religious can be influenced from less religious. We should not hate them but we should avoid mixing also.

@Kuvult: “don’t judge a Yid by their Hashkafa judge them by whether they’re a Mensch.”

Why should a Jew be judged at all? And once I am judging him, why in the world should I judge him if he is a mensch and not by hashkafa? What’s the difference?

It doesn’t say “You shall love a mensch as yourself.” Who doesn’t love mensches? Most people love non-Jewish mensches as well! The mitzvah of ואהבת לרעך כמוך means to love every single Jew, whether he is handsome, polite, smelly, dirty, stupid, or rude. (רמב”ם הלכות דעות פ”ו ה”ג)
You don’t love your brother because he is a mensch.

@Reb Eliezer – RE: Machlokes between Aim Habonim Smeicha and the Minchas Elozor

These are actually two ways in the Gemara (Sanhedrin 99a):
If we merit the Geula (זכו) – it will happen speedily before its time (אחישנה) and miraculously (ארו עם ענני שמיא).
If ch”v we don’t merit the Geula (לא זכו) – it will happen in its time (בעתה) in a long natural process (עני ורוכב על החמור).

Kuvult > I never understood this concept of “Tzadikim” owning or running their own school

There is such concept in Bava Basra – when butcher union decided to slash skins of one who was breaking their monopoly, they were blamed for making community decision when there was a talmid chacham in town. They shold have gone to him for a resolution. (I presume beis din would work also).
That is, Talmid Chacham as a first resort, and democracy as a second (politics at that time allowed guilds to behave as a community, we might consider this a monopoly).

Community approach you mention is also good – if it works. Or, a competition approach that I mentioned. Each might work depending on size and structure of the community. Back to Bava Basra’s discussion of educational system, it seems that we just need to keep the goal – education – in mind (rather than teachers’ or other interest), and whatever works empirically should be used, and if not – discarded. Bava Basra lists approaches tried during Beis Mikdash sheni era: first fathers were teaching (seems like most preferred option) – but many were not educated enough (Lakewood was not built yet); then, they sent kids to Cohanim in Yerushalayim (2nd preferred – most inspired teachers in a most inspired location) – but not all fathers could drive there; 3rd best – regional centers where kids could walk themselves (that is, still somewhat higher quality teachers, less inspiring setting), but only teenagers would walk so far and they would not listen to the teachers (maybe because teachers/setting were not best?); and 4th best approach that worked – teach small kids at each location (maybe not best teachers, but small kids will listen) + ensure sufficient funding (small class sizes or extra teachers) + unlimited competition, as described already.